The Gore Score

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Chas was a journalist (he was the EIC of Deep Red as well as a frequent contributor to Fangoria and its spin-off Gorezone), author, artist, screenwriter commentator, critic, and all around champion of gore, exploitation, and independent horror during the conservative ‘80s. He lost a lengthy battle with cancer on December 18th, 2009.

The gore score was a rating system (on a 1-10 scale) that measured the amount of bloodletting in a movie that Chas included with his reviews in addition to a customary one to four skull rating that measured the overall quality of the film. Both systems can best be understood by the original baselines established by Chas (reprinted from Deep Red Alert number 1):

Who are you?

I (rupan777 or Coffin Jon, depending on how you've gotten to know me) am not a friend or acquaintance of Chas' (but we did briefly trade bootleg VHS tapes at one time), only a major fan. To me, Chas was THE mouthpiece for the generation of horror fans in the '80s and '90s who were tired of crappy, horror movies with clownish antagonists and wanted the harder stuff. This blog will NOT reprint or reproduce any of Chas' original work (though I may reference it) but look at movies under the same gore score microscope instead.

Welcome to the Gore Score!

This blog is a tribute to the late Charles "Chas" Balun (1948 -2009). Chas was a author, artist, critic, screenwriter, and journalist (Fangoria, Deep Red, Fangoria) and all-around champion of horror, gore, exploitation, and cult cinema of all sorts. He lost a lengthy battle with cancer on December 18th, 2009.

Our aim is to review films in the same vein as Chas and his Gore Score. Check out this post for more details.